Mumbai: Share prices, mainly old-economy blue-chips, drifted further downwards on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on July 22 due to sustained selling by domestic funds and operators as the SENSEX continued its four-session losing streak by ending another 15.45 points weak at 3,554.13.

Attributing the initial weakness to negative advices from Wall Street on July 21 night, dealers said heavy profit-booking at higher levels by local funds and operators mainly caused damage to the market.

Index-based shares like RIL, SBI, Telco, Tisco, BHEL, L&T, Grasim, HDFC, HPCL, Hero Honda, Dr Reddy, ICICI Bank, ACC, Bajaj Auto, BSES, GACL and Satyam Computer suffered sharp to moderate setback on selling.

Had there not been a smart rise in other heavyweights like HLL, Infosys Tech, Cipla and Zee Telefilms, the loss in the SENSEX would have been much more pronounced.

Most of the Cement, Banks and public sector undertakings (PSUs) stocks bore the brunt of institutional selling, while select IT shares recovered their initial losses and even some of them closed in positive terrain.

The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened lower at 3,557.13 as against July 21 close of 3,569.58 and moved irregularly in a range between 3,582.08 and 3,534.06 before concluding at 3,554.13, a fall of 0.43 per cent.

The broad-based BSE-100 index also dropped by 9.70 points to end at 1,784.54 from previous close of 1,794.24.

Meanwhile, on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average and the NASDAQ composite index dipped by 91.46 and 27.02 points on July 21 night respectively.

PTI